How Do I Move from My 485 Visa to a 482 Visa With the Employer I Already Work For?
Good news first. Moving from a 485 to a 482 with the employer you already work for is the most straightforward version of this transition. You are already in the role, they already know your work, and you are not asking anyone to take a risk on a stranger.
Getting Sponsored Is Not One Application. It Is Three, and Two of Them Belong to Your Employer.
Sponsorship Approval
The business becomes an approved Standard Business Sponsor if it is not already one.
Nomination
The business nominates your specific position. Salary and occupation tests sit here.
Visa Application
Your experience, English, health, character. The predictable one.
Understanding which is which tells you what you can influence and what you cannot. The second thing that trips people up is more technical: your nomination has to clear two separate salary tests, and neither of them counts your bonus, your superannuation or any perks. A package you think of as one number may be assessed as considerably less.
The Short Version
Three steps: the business becomes an approved sponsor if it is not already, it lodges a nomination for your position, and you lodge the visa. The nomination and visa can be lodged at the same time, and lodging before your 485 expires is what secures your bridging visa. Your occupation must be on the Core Skills Occupation List, and your guaranteed base salary must clear both the applicable income threshold and the Annual Market Salary Rate for the role in your location, whichever is higher.
This article is about the process. If your employer has not actually agreed yet and keeps saying later, our companion guide on the "later" conversation and how to move it forward is the one to read first. If it turns out this pathway does not fit your occupation or salary, our guide on the 485 options when no employer sponsorship is available covers what fits your remaining time.
Employer Agreed, Now Working Out the Process? Get the Timeline Right the First Time.
A migration professional can check your occupation against the Core Skills Occupation List, work out which income threshold applies to your role and stream, and identify anything that would need to be resolved before the nomination is prepared. It is much cheaper than fixing it after lodgement.
Step One: Is the Business Already an Approved Sponsor?
This is the question that shapes your entire timeline, and it takes one conversation to answer.
Ask in Exactly These Words
If yes, this step is done. They have been through it, the approval generally lasts several years, and you can move straight to the nomination.
If no, the business has to apply and be approved before it can nominate anyone. That is a real application with its own requirements around the business being lawfully operating and meeting training and compliance obligations, and it adds time you may not have.
Step Two: The Nomination, Which Is Where It Usually Succeeds or Fails
The nomination is the business application for your specific position. It is assessed separately from your visa, and it is the stage where most problems arise.
| What Is Assessed | What It Means for You |
|---|---|
| The occupation | Your role must appear on the Core Skills Occupation List, which replaced the previous lists in December 2024. What matters is the ANZSCO occupation your duties actually fit, not your internal job title. |
| The salary | Two tests, covered below. This is the most common failure point for a graduate. |
| Genuine position | The role must genuinely exist and be necessary to the business. Straightforward when you are already doing the job, which is a real advantage of transitioning with your current employer. |
| Labour market testing | Where it applies, the position generally has to be advertised before the nomination can be lodged. This has its own lead time. |
| The levy | The Skilling Australians Fund levy is paid by the employer at nomination, upfront for the full nomination period. It cannot be recovered from you. |
The Occupation Check You Should Do Yourself
Look Up Your Actual Duties Against the Core Skills Occupation List, Not Your Job Title
Businesses use internal titles that do not map cleanly onto ANZSCO, and a mismatch between the title, the duties and the nominated occupation is a common reason nominations fail.
If your duties do not fit an occupation on the list, the Core Skills stream is not available, and the conversation with your employer needs to be about a different pathway rather than a later date.
The Two Salary Tests, and Why Graduates Fail Them
This is the part that catches people, and it deserves proper attention because it is rarely explained to the worker.
Your nominated salary has to clear two separate tests at the same time.
The Income Threshold
A fixed minimum set by the Department and indexed annually. Which threshold applies depends on the stream you are nominated under. The figure that applies is the one in force when the nomination is lodged.
The Annual Market Salary Rate
What an equivalent Australian worker would be paid for the same role in the same location. Determined by the employer with evidence, not set by the Department.
Both Tests Look at Guaranteed Base Salary Only. This Is Where Packages Fail That Look Fine on Paper.
Discretionary bonuses, overtime, superannuation and non-monetary benefits such as a car or accommodation do not count toward either figure.
A graduate who thinks of their package as one number often finds the assessable figure is meaningfully lower. Check your contract for the guaranteed base, not the total package, before you assume you clear the threshold.
How the Market Rate Is Actually Worked Out
The Annual Market Salary Rate is not a published number. Your employer has to determine it with evidence.
Where there is an equivalent Australian worker in the business doing the same role, their earnings are the reference point. Where there is not, the employer uses a relevant award or industrial instrument, or other market evidence such as recent advertisements for equivalent positions in the same location, remuneration surveys or labour market data. Location matters, because a rate in central Sydney is not a rate in regional Australia.
Employers Gained More Flexibility in How They Evidence the Market Rate
Where a Fair Work or other industrial instrument previously had to carry the determination, an employer can now rely on alternative evidence provided the resulting salary is at least equal to the instrument rate. The change applies to nominations lodged from that date and to earlier nominations not yet decided. It does not change the income thresholds themselves.
If your employer has looked at this before and concluded it was too hard to evidence, that conclusion may be out of date.
Step Three: Your Visa Application
This is the only one of the three that is yours, and it is the most predictable.
- One year of relevant work experience within the past five years, in your nominated occupation or a related field at the same skill level. This was reduced from two years in December 2024 and it is the reason many 485 holders are eligible earlier than they expect.
- English, health and character requirements.
- Skills assessment, where required for your occupation and circumstances.
- The visa application charge, which is yours to pay. The sponsorship charge, nomination charge and levy are the employer costs and cannot be recovered from you.
Timing It Against Your 485 Expiry
The nomination and the visa application can be lodged at the same time. The visa cannot be granted until the nomination is approved, but you do not need to wait for approval before lodging.
That matters because lodging a valid application while you still hold your 485 is what secures a Bridging Visa A, which takes effect on expiry and keeps you lawful with work rights while the application is decided.
The Date You Are Working Toward Is Lodgement, Not Approval.
An employer who commits mid-runway is still workable. An employer who commits in the final fortnight usually is not, because nomination preparation, and sponsorship approval if needed, sit in front of the lodgement date.
| Your Situation | What It Means for Timing |
|---|---|
| Already an approved sponsor | Nomination and visa can be prepared and lodged together. This is the fast version. |
| Not yet a sponsor | Sponsorship approval comes first and adds months. Start immediately or consider whether this is realistic against your expiry date. |
| Labour market testing applies | The advertising period runs before the nomination can be lodged. Ask whether it has started. |
| Occupation or salary problem | Better to find this out now than at lodgement. Both are checkable before anything is submitted. |
What Happens After, and Why This Step Matters
The 482 is not the destination. For most people in this position it is the bridge to permanent residence through the Temporary Residence Transition pathway, which generally requires two years of employment in the nominated occupation.
The 486 Decision Made Now Sets Up the 186 Decision Later
The qualifying employment must be with an approved sponsor, and the two year period is portable across approved sponsors, so a later move to another sponsoring employer does not necessarily reset it. Our guide on changing employers on a 482 visa covers how portability actually works. The 186 has its own requirements, including an age limit that does not apply to the 482.
Getting the occupation right at the nomination stage matters more than it appears, because the permanent stage generally requires the same occupation. A nomination in an occupation that loosely fits can create a problem two years later that would have been easy to avoid at the start.
What to Do This Week
- Ask whether the business already holds Standard Business Sponsorship approval.
- Check your duties against the Core Skills Occupation List, using the ANZSCO description rather than your job title.
- Find the guaranteed base salary figure in your contract, excluding bonuses, superannuation and any non-monetary benefits.
- Confirm you have at least one year of relevant experience within the past five years.
- Ask your employer for a target lodgement date and measure it against your 485 expiry.
- If labour market testing applies, ask whether it has started, because nothing can be lodged until it is complete.
- Start gathering your own documents now: identity, qualifications, employment evidence, English test and any skills assessment.
- Do not offer to pay any sponsorship or nomination cost. The employer cannot lawfully recover those from you in any form.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ready to Move from 485 to 482 With Your Current Employer? Get the Occupation and Salary Right First.
A migration professional can confirm your occupation fits the Core Skills Occupation List, check your guaranteed base salary against both thresholds, and set a realistic lodgement target that beats your 485 expiry with room to spare.